Seemandhra RTC in trouble

Also, the largest fleet of buses in the world that the corporation holds will be divided in the existing order of the districts. To start the bifurcation process, a new head office for the residual state of Andhra Pradesh will be set up in Hyderabad.

However, with barely 25 days left for the formal bifurcation, there is not much movement in the corporation.

Insiders say that the huge machinery of the corporation will not be disturbed and suddenly turned around. “Although the government order has specified that the division will be in a 10:13 ratio as per the number of districts, there is no further specification on how the actual division will take place. We expect everything to continue in the current manner for some time at least,” a senior official said.

Although there are different loss and gain theories being debated about the two regions, officials say that nothing has been decided. According to one section of the corporation, the Seemandhra region, with a lower value of assets despite having 13 districts, might be in for a jolt. Assets in the Telangana region is of higher value, especially in Hyderabad and Karimnagar.

There are currently 12,000 services in the Seemandhra region and 9,500 services in the Telangana region. A shuffling of services is being indicated by employee unions. “We are accountable for running services as usual. Services cannot be added or subtracted from a depot one fine day. As there is passenger load, we will have to clear it as earlier. Although there are various concerns from either side about services being rolled back, that will not happen anytime soon. It will take time to bring about any change in such a huge corporation,” added the official.

Meanwhile to begin with, the district-wise division would mean that the buses, ordinary and special, depots, drivers and district-level staff would remain as they are. There will be no change on the ground, except for a new head office being set up in Hyderabad. The administrative staff will be divided in the given ratio and assigned to each side.

The corporation has total accumulated losses of roughly Rs 5,000 crore, which will also be distributed in the given ratio. The 90 depots, which are with Telangana districts, will remain with the new state of Telangana while the 123 depots, which are in the Seemandhra region, will be with the residual state of Andhra Pradesh.

Both sides will begin their new innings at a huge loss in their accounts and the future will depend on the new state governments.

Meanwhile, there has been no confirmation on the name of the corporation in the state of Telangana. However, going by the names of corporations in other states, the likely name will be Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC).